The present invention relates to a lighting apparatus for an LCD (liquid crystal display), and particularly to a lighting apparatus for an LCD of a digital camera.
A digital camera is generally provided with an LCD allowing a user to monitor captured images. Generally, there are two types of LCDs: a reflective type LCD; and a transmissive type LCD. The reflective type LCD is widely used as a display device in various devices such as a cellular phone and personal digital assistant (PDA). The LCD of this type requires, however, a device for illuminating an image displaying surface. Therefore, the reflective type LCD tends to be large in size. In addition, the color saturation of the reflective type LCD is relatively low. Such reflective liquid crystal may be adaptable, for example, for a cellular phone, wherein no specifically high image quality is required, but the reflective liquid crystal may not be suitable for a display configured in a digital camera wherein relatively high image quality is required. If the reflective liquid crystal is possibly used for a display in a digital camera, a light guide is required to be overlaid on the surface of the LCD whereto the emitted beams are introduced, as described in Japanese Provisional Patent Publication No. 2000-162576. In this case, the camera body inevitably increases the dimension in depth. For the purpose of downsizing, the light guide needs to be configured thinner, although the beams through a thinner light guide may not reach to the periphery of the display area, or may not be provided evenly with enough brightness.
Thus, it is difficult to use the reflective type LCD in the digital camera which requires, in many cases, a transmissive type LCD, and it is equipped with back lights for clearer images to be seen. The LCD of the digital camera is typically arranged on the back surface of the camera body. An example of a configuration of back lights is disclosed in Japanese Patent Provisional Publication No. 2000-162576. According to JP Provisional Publication No. 2000-162576, the liquid crystal is provided with light sources and a light guide. The beams emitted from the light sources or other available light are guided to illuminate the LCD from the rear side of the LCD.
With this structure, thus, the dimension of the LCD with a light guide is increased in depth, which results in, as shown in FIG. 12 of Japanese Patent Provisional Publication No. 2000-162576, the LCD protrudes outward of the camera body, and may cause a difficulty in configuring a slim and downsized camera.